Students in the Union were left hearing voices on Wednesday after an automated alarm on a G4S van starting going off.

The company van was parked outside the entrance to the building while the G4S staff were inside carrying out training exercises. A large crowd of students gathered around the van after hearing the alarm, which sounded like a loud siren accompanied by the words “help” and “call the police”.

A first year Philosophy and Politics students was the first to comply with the van’s instructions, summoning a nearby police officer to the scene. The student told LS that she heard the alarm while walking towards the Union, and that she and a friend were “just going to go inside at first, but then we thought we should help.”

A police firearms unit also responded, arriving outside the Union shortly after the automated alert was triggered. A G4S employee said after turning off the alarm that it had most likely caused by “bad weather.”

Sean Hayes